


Lockup Blues

by phoenixflight



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Accidental Incest, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Prison, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Banter, Canon Related, First Time, Flirting, Hopeful Ending, Incarcerated Dean Winchester, Interviews, M/M, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Raised Apart, Season/Series 01, Student Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:16:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27625958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixflight/pseuds/phoenixflight
Summary: Sam Smith is working on his master's thesis, interviewing notorious serial killer Dean Winchester at San Quentin Prison, trying to understand why the pieces don't quite add up, and trying to ignore Winchester's distracting mouth.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 55
Kudos: 258





	Lockup Blues

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this after reading A Human Being Died That Night by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, which is an excellent and heavy book about interviewing an apartheid enforcer in prison. So I wrote some wincest to cope? Anyway. Warning for discussion of murder, rape, etc, and canon typical violence. I don't know anything about psychological profiling and research, so if you do, don't judge me. Also, while the premises are different this fic certainly owes a debt of inspiration to runedgirl's excellent [Back on the Chain Gang Again.](https://runedgirl.livejournal.com/78763.html)  
> I had a lot of fun writing this, so enjoy!

Sam’s heart pounded as another heavy prison gate crashed shut behind him. The guard escorting him stopped in front of a metal door part way down the hall, and nodded to another guard. “He’s already in there,” he said to Sam. “You remember what the warden told you? We’ll be right outside, you’ve got a panic button if you need it, and for god’s sake don’t let him have a pencil or something.” His eyes flicked down to Sam’s notebook and tape recorder. 

Sam nodded. “Got it.” His throat was dry. 

The door creaked. The interview room was small and bare, harshly lit with a metal table bolted to the ground and two metal chairs. A man in an orange jumpsuit looked up, familiar from hours of pouring over details of his life for Sam’s thesis. Sam had seen all his mugshots, security footage, blurry FBI surveillance photos. None of it had prepared him for the man in person; his fine boned cheeks and straight nose, the exquisite bow of his mouth, and the sooty sweep of his eyelashes. The orange jumpsuit wasn’t flattering on anyone but it couldn’t disguise his broad shoulders, arms thick with muscle. 

Sam’s throat rasped as he swallowed. “Dean Winchester?” 

The man flashed a smile, wicked fast and charming, and Sam’s stomach swooped. “I’d get up and shake your hand but…” He spread his hands six inches and chain rattled between them, strung through a loop on the table. 

“I'm Sam.” Sam approached the table with his heartbeat echoing in his ears, and sat gingerly in the empty chair. “Sam Smith.” 

“Dude, seriously?” Winchester wrinkled his nose. 

“What?” Sam blinked, hands tightening on his notebook.

“C’mon Sam Smith? With a name like Smith you need something interesting but classic. Kurt, maybe. Or Credence.”

Sam felt his own eyebrows lifting. “Credence?”

“Yeah, Credence Smith, it’s snappy. Your parents seriously decided to name you Sam Smith?” 

“I was already named Sam.”

“What, you popped out with it tattooed on you?”

“No, I was adopted.” Sam looked down at his hands on the gleaming table, at his notebook and tape recorder. Winchester had already managed to unbalance him. “But we're here to talk about you. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”

“No sweat. It's part of my good behavior. You’re writing some kind of book report on me, huh?”

“My master’s thesis,” Sam said.

“Yeah, isn’t that what I said? So, college boy, how does this go?” 

“Um.” Sam flipped open his notebook, looking at the long list of questions he’d prepared and the facts he’d written down. “So, my degree is in criminal psychology, with an emphasis in violent and serial crime.” 

Winchester slouched back in his chair, managing to make it look comfortable despite the evidence to the contrary coming from the nerve endings in Sam’s own ass. “With a hobby like that, I bet you get all the girls,” he smirked. “So, criminal psychology. You want to know why I did it, like everyone else.”

“Something like that.”

“WelI I can tell you why. I did it because I’m a bad, sick man who kills for fun.” 

“Really,” Sam said, in his best neutral voice, the one he’d perfected in clinical rotations. “What makes you say that?” 

Winchester shrugged one shoulder. “Guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.” 

“I'd like to get to know you a little better than that.”

“Oh you would, would you?” Winchester’s grin was more explicit and more embarrassing than bad pornography and Sam felt his face heat. 

He fought for professionalism, and turned on his tape recorder. “Let’s get started. Tell me about yourself.” 

“Well,” Winchester drawled. “I was born in Lawrence, Kansas. I'm an Aquarius. I like classic rock, apple pie, and making out during scary movies.”

“What's your favorite movie?” 

“I'd have to go with the Untouchables.”

“So you like action movies too?”

“What is this, a singles mixer? I thought you were here to talk about my big, bad past.” 

“Just asking.” 

“Action movies are great. Lots of explosions.”

“You like things blowing up?”

Winchester raised a finger at him. “You think that was sneaky but it was not. Sure, I like blowing stuff up. Who doesn’t?” 

“I can't say I've ever tried it.”

“Perks of being a criminal I guess.” His tone was casual but he was watching Sam closely, curiously. 

Sam shuffled his papers, glancing at his notes. “There's only one count of arson on your record but several of the charges of grave desecration include bodies that were burnt.”

“What kind of crazy guy would dig up bodies just to burn them?”

“That's what I would like to know too,” Sam said.

“You can't believe everything you read in a police report. Probably some kids having a bonfire in the local cemetery. Cops like to pin that shit on outsiders.”

“You think?”

“Yeah. When something weird is going on, there's always a solid chance it's teenagers.” He made a  _ then again _ face, mouth pursed and eyebrows hopping. “Not always though.” 

“So you're not the kind of crazy that burns things in graveyards,” Sam said. Winchester’s face was expressive and mobile. Sam kept having to drag his eyes away from the man’s lips. 

“I’ve already had a psych evaluation, you know. Ruled competent to stand trial. One hundred percent sane when I offed all those folks, if you can call a serial killer sane by any definition.” There was a curl to the corners of his mouth that wasn’t exactly a smile. “Man, I met these cannibals once. Now  _ they  _ were crazy. Boatloads of crazy. You should have seen the twelve year old come after me with a knife. Their house was full of bones and trinkets, dead people’s stuff. Nasty.”

“Do you take trophies?” Sam asked, making a note to himself to look into cannibals. There wasn’t anything like that on Winchester’s record but if Sam could dig something up he might be able to add to the picture of his life.

“Do I take...?” Winchester began, sounding startled, and then he sighed. “No, I don't take trophies.”

“Do you ever want a way to remember the things you've done?”

His brow wrinkled. “Are people really into that shit? No. Believe me, I'm not likely to forget any of the people who've died because of me.” Winchester tapped his fingers on the table with a hollow sound, and he grimaced. 

Sam tipped his head to one side. “You feel guilty about it?”

“Yeah, I guess so. What's that say about me, doc?”

Sam looks down at his notepad. “It says maybe you're more than just a sick fuck who kills for fun.”

Winchester snorted. “Come on, you think people can't feel guilty about things they do for fun? You've never met a girl trying to stay on a diet.”

“Fair point. Okay, so tell me more about how you feel after a murder.”

“Let me get this straight. You want me to talk about my feelings and I'm not even going to get laid afterward.”

Sam bit the inside of his lip, smiling despite himself. “That's about the shape of it, yeah.”

Winchester glared at him. “Maybe we can paint our nails and watch a rom com while we're at it.”

“Lots of people find it challenging to talk about their feelings,” Sam said in his best doctor's chair voice. “It's perfectly normal.”

“Oh fuck you. I’m not falling for that reverse psychology crap. If you want to talk about my feelings at least bring me some ice cream first.” 

“What flavor?” 

“Cherry Garcia. I might also put out for rocky road.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Sam ducked his head, helpless to hide his smile widening and wrote down  _ Cherry Garcia  _ on his notepad. 

“Can I ask a question?” Winchester asked. “Or is this a one way thing?” 

“No, yeah. Go ahead.” 

“Why me? Plenty of serial killers around, right? Why’d you decide you wanted to talk to me?”

“Because the pattern of your crimes is inconsistent. It doesn’t match any kind of profile, but all that means is the pattern hasn't been found yet.” 

“So I'm some kind of puzzle.”

Sam fiddled with his pen. “I like trying to explain the unexplained.” 

For some reason, that made Winchester laugh, loud and sudden enough to make Sam jump. But when Sam said, “What?” he just shook his head. 

“Just a kind of inside joke with myself, you might say. So, you like mysteries.” 

“I guess you could say that.” 

Winchester’s distracting mouth curled up in a deliberate smile, very different from his genuine grin. “And I’m enough of a mystery for you?” 

“What are you, a Bond girl?” Sam asked before he could stop himself, and then flushed. His thesis advisor would kick his ass if she heard Sam being unprofessional like that, but Winchester laughed again, and Sam’s stomach felt warm. Treacherously, his mind reminded him of meeting Jess for the first time, and how he’d almost instantly decided that making her laugh was his new hobby. He pushed that thought firmly away. 

“You wouldn’t be the first, Sammy. I can rock the mystery man thing. The vigilante, the lone wolf.” Classic narcissism, Sam thought, but Winchester was still grinning, an edge of self-deprecating humor to his words. That was the thing about criminal psychology - sometimes people said things that would be innocuous at a barbecue, but took on loaded meanings in a prison interview. 

“You like to work alone?”

“Like it? Nah. But these days I don’t have much choice.” 

“When you robbed the bank in Minneapolis you were working with an accomplice.”

“Ah, Ronnie? “ Winchester’s cocky grin sagged into something more tired and genuine. “Yeah. That was kind of a fluke.” 

“How so?” 

“I was in the middle of something, and he just sorta showed up.” 

“In the middle of robbing a bank?” 

“That’s right.” 

“And you hadn’t met prior to that.” 

“I spoke to him when I was casing the joint, you know, deciding on my next target. He used to work as a security guard at one of the other banks.”

“Really?” This was new information, as far as Sam could tell. “Can you say more about your planning process for the robbery?” 

“Little bit of surveillance, talk to some people.” 

“Is that all?” 

Winchester looked affronted. “Sorry, is that not exciting enough for you? I called George Clooney to see if he’d consult but I couldn’t afford his rates.” 

“I never saw that movie,” Sam said. 

“I only saw the first half,” Winchester admitted. “We snuck out of the movie and fucked in the bathroom.” 

Sam blinked. “Who’s we?” 

“Some girl. Don’t remember her name. It was in Atlanta, I think. Maybe Savannah. I just remember how goddamn hot it was outside. Otherwise we’d have fucked in the car.” 

Pursuing a line of casual conversation was an important tactic in subject interviews, and often revealed the most honest information. But the only question Sam could think of was  _ Do you like fucking in your car? _ And Sam could only push the boundaries of his professionalism so far. 

Instead he said, “Had you planned robberies before?” 

“Breaking into one place is pretty much like breaking into another,” Winchester said.

“Is that a no? None of the other crimes on your record appear to be financially motivated.”

“You’re wondering how many the police missed.” 

“Well, yes.” 

“I told you, why should I give you anything they don’t already have?”

Sam sighed. “No reason. Just curious. So say this was your first bank robbery. Why?” 

“Everyone has to branch out sometimes.” Winchester’s eyes were unreadable and calm, the warm brown in the hazel brought out by the orange jumpsuit. 

Sam continued, “And if I remember the police report correctly, nothing was actually stolen from First Bank that night, although a number of people were killed.”

Winchester sat back with a shrug. “Yeah, it was a bust.” 

“Apart from the… general fun of murder?” 

“Yeah, hostage situations are a boatload of giggles.” He started to lift one hand, as if to touch his face, and was caught by the chains, grimacing. 

“The hostage situation began when Ronald Rexnick arrived at the bank armed. Security footage showed you entering earlier dressed as a maintenance person.” 

“Yeah. Like I said, kind of a fluke.” 

“Before he stormed the bank, he left several statements claiming that he was hunting a mandroid that was carrying out a series of inside-job robberies throughout Minneapolis. Did you speak to him at all about that?” 

“Could hardly avoid it. He was desperate to tell anyone his theory.”

“And what do you think of his theory?” 

“Mandroids? Seriously? No such fucking thing.” 

Sam tilted his head to one side. “When you were taken into custody in Baltimore you gave a confession yourself that featured some uncanny elements.” 

Winchester lounged further down in his metal chair, face perfectly casual. “Ah, man I was fucking with them. You don’t believe that shit, do you?” 

“Of course not,” Sam said quickly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Why chose that particular way of fucking with the police?” 

“Too many monster movies on TV when I was growing up? I dunno man. I was buying myself time. It was the first thing that came to mind.” 

“You said,” Sam glanced down at his notebook but he didn’t need the notes to recall any of it, “that you were hunting a demon that killed your mother, and along the way confronting ghosts, spirits, and monsters of other sorts. That it was those things that had killed all the people.” He had poured over the transcript of Winchester’s strange confession, more obsessed than he had any reason to be with that particular oddity. He was still waiting on the public records request for a copy of the actual tape. 

“It would be crazy to believe something like that,” Winchester said calmly. 

Sam let out a breath. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. It could have been a strong set-up for a plea of insanity.” 

“That’s what my lawyer said.” 

“But you plead guilty instead.”

“I’ll take a cell over a padded room.” 

“Even on death row?” For some reason, Sam’s heart was beating hard.

“Oh yeah. Death and I are old friends.” Some guys would get macho, saying a thing like that, trying to sound tough, but Winchester didn’t. He sounded like he was cracking a joke at his own expense, darkly amused. His smile didn’t reach his eyes. 

Sam swallowed. “What do you think happens to people after death?” 

Winchester snorted. “Maybe, if I get real lucky, a whole lotta nothing.” 

“You’re not religious?” 

“Nah. Religion’s for people who haven’t got anything better to keep the nightmares away.” 

Sam blinked. There was no way at all for Winchester to know that the only nights Sam remembered his mother’s Protestant prayers were the nights he woke from the worst nightmares - the ones about flames and blood and yellow eyes in the dark. 

The door to the interview room squealed open, and Sam jumped. 

“Time’s up,” the guard grunted. 

“Oh! Oh, um, right. Yeah, yes. Sorry. Mr. Winchester, thank you for meeting with me.” 

“No problem. We doing this shindig again?” 

“If you’re willing, yes. Next week?” 

“Well my schedule’s packed these days but I can always find time for a pretty boy.” Winchester leered at him, and the guard made a disapproving noise as he held the door for Sam. 

“Next week then,” Sam said, feeling his face heat. 

  


It wasn’t quite three o’clock but Bay Area rush hour was already in full swing when Sam left San Quentin, and it took him two hours to get back to his apartment by campus. He microwaved a frozen enchilada for dinner and ate it in front of his computer, checking his email. 

There was one waiting from his thesis advisor asking how it had gone. Sam started the first sentence of a reply half a dozen times, before settling on _ It went fine. I’ll get you some notes tomorrow.  _

Sam sent the email and then opened a word document. He looked down at the few notes he had scrawled in the notebook, and then pressed rewind on his recorder, listening to the tape whirring backward. Winchester’s voice was tinny on the tape, but the cadence was the same, teasing and low, making Sam’s stomach feel funny.  _ You’re doing some kind of book report on me, huh? _

His phone rang. Sam jumped, knees knocking against the underside of the desk and then leaped up to grab the phone out of its cradle. 

“Hey, it's me. How did it go?”

“Jess,” Sam sighed, leaning against the wall. “Hey.”

Some of their friends had been surprised when Sam and Jess had stayed close after their breakup, but it had been an amicable split. Sam had been relieved that the breakup had ended his unsettling dreams about Jess’s death, and he thought Jess had been a little glad to no longer be dealing with his nightmares and occasional paranoia.

“So? You made it out alive,” Jess said. “Tell me all about it.”

“It was…” Sam rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Really weird. He's easy to talk to.” 

“Not as crazy as you were expecting?”

“Clinically speaking, that's not really a question that I can answer,” Sam said smiling slightly.

“Come on,” Jess groaned. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah. Not as crazy as I was expecting.”

“And was he as hot as his pictures?” 

“Jess!” Sam complained, and she cackled in his ear. 

“Go on, tell me! Give me the details. Was he smoking? I bet he was.”

“Yes,” Sam admitted, face burning even alone in his apartment. “Jesus, this is so inappropriate.” 

“It’s not like you hadn’t noticed his looks already. All that bull you fed your advisor about his unique criminal profile, when we both know it was just because you wanted to look at his mugshot every day while you worked on your thesis. You’re a sucker for a pretty face, Sam Smith.” 

“I’m gonna hang up on you now,” Sam said. 

  


He had his next appointment at the prison the following Monday. The butterflies in his stomach were almost worse than the first time, as he signed the visitor’s log and got his badge. 

Winchester was in the interrogation room again, cuffed to the table. He grinned when Sam came in. “Hey, Doctor Freud.” 

“Freud was a disgrace to psychology,” Sam said primly, taking his seat. 

“Yeah? Your hair is a disgrace.” 

It was so childish and stupid that it caught Sam off guard, and he ducked his head, half laughing. His bangs fell into his eyes, which made him chuckle out loud. 

When he looked up, Winchester was looking smug. “What about Jung? You gonna ask about my dreams?” 

“You know Carl Jung?” Sam blinked. 

“Well not personally.” 

“Right.” Sam shook his head. “So. Did you dream last night?” 

“Now you mention it, I did have a pretty nice dream. I was pulled over beside the highway, somewhere in the mountains, you know how the sun is hot but the air is cool? And there were these two chicks on the hood of my car, wearing the tiniest shorts…” 

“Okay,” Sam interrupted. He’d walked right into that one. “I don’t think I need a psychology degree to tell you what that means.” 

Winchester grinned at him. “You don’t want to hear about when the other guy shows up?” 

“Other guy?” Sam asked, derailed. 

“Yeah. You know, I can always go for some two-on-two action. Some friendly competition between guys. Or. Well, in my dreams sometimes I get to be the center of attention if you know what I’m saying. Don’t tell the guys in here I told you so, though.” 

Sam’s mouth was dry. “You mean…” 

“Bad for my image. Some of the folks inside aren’t the progressive type.” 

“Why are you telling me this?” Sam asked faintly. 

Winchester raised his eyebrows. “Why does anybody tell a guy they play for both teams?” 

“I…” Sam felt heat flood across his cheeks. Jess was never going to let him hear the end of this. “Um. I’m flattered but.”

“Wassamatter, Sammy? Got a girlfriend at home?” 

“No, I’m single actually. But. We - it’s, uh. There’s no way…” 

Winchester kicked back as far as the bolted chair would let him. “I’m just yanking your chain. No conjugal visits in maximum security, anyway.” 

“Right,” Sam said, and realized that Winchester had managed to thoroughly distract and wrong-foot him within the first ten minutes, just like last time. He pushed a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. “Okay. Enough about the dreams. Tell me about your first time.” Winchester started to grin and Sam hurried on. “The first time you killed someone, I mean.” 

Winchester quirked his eyebrows. “You sure you don’t want to hear about another kind of first time? That story’s more fun, I promise.” 

“I’ll pass, thanks. Let’s stick to murder.” 

“Spoilsport.” He let the smile slide off his face, and for a moment he looked grim and thoughtful, almost sad. “First time was St. Louis.” 

"Really?"

"Yeah, why?" 

"It's just, the profile of that crime, it didn't seem like a first killing." 

Winchester shrugged. "Maybe I'm just naturally talented. You think I'm going to tell you about stuff the cops don't already have?" 

"So there was stuff," Sam pressed.

"A couple of parking tickets. Don't want that on my permanent record."

In spite of himself, Sam had to suppress another smile. Looking down at his notepad, he changed tactics. “What went through your head, when I first asked about your first time? Other than sex?” 

“Ah nothing, it wasn’t… nah. Just.” 

“What?” Sam’s fingers tightened around his pen. “You had a weird look on your face.”

“I uh. Just thought about my first time killing… something else. Not a person. Just… reminded me of it.” He blinked himself out of his reverie. “You know, killing critters before humans, classic pattern of escalation.” 

“Are you profiling yourself for me?” 

“Is it helping?”  Winchester’s grin was a thousand watts, all dimples and freckles and creases around his eyes. 

S am blinked to distract himself. “Let me do the profiling. Tell me about St Louis."

"It's not bad, as cities go. I found this diner once where everything was deep fried. Deep fried meatballs, deep fried ravioli, deep fried apple pie. Mmmmm." Winchester licked his lips and Sam found himself following the movement helplessly. The man grinned, like he had caught Sam at it. 

“So, what, you decided some first time murder was the thing to do after dessert?” Vaguely, Sam wondered what the hell he was doing, sitting across the table from his generation’s most notorious and inscrutable serial killer, flirting with him. And Winchester was grinning. 

“Yeah, something like that.” 

“Where did you meet the girls?”

He shrugged. “Bar. The usual.”

“The usual?” 

“Sure. I like a little R&R as much as the next man. A couple of drinks, a cute girl for company.” 

“Company,” Sam repeated. 

“What are you, a broken record? Yeah, company. I don’t always kill them, you know. Or at least, only a little death.” Winchester smirked. 

“Okay. So, how did you choose the girls? What caught your eye?” The victim’s profiles had all been female and relatively young but without similarities in ethnicity, coloring or body type.

“Look, generally speaking, my type is any woman who’s into me. I went home with the first girls to come my way.” 

“Two of the three victims had boyfriends,” Sam said. “Who were initially accused of the crime.” 

“Them cheating’s not on me.” He looked up through his eyelashes at Sam. “Anyway, can you blame them?” 

Sam cleared his throat. “After you left the bar, what happened?” 

“Went back to their places.” 

“Did you engage in sexual activity with any of the women?” 

Winchester made a face. “Did I engage in sexual activity?” he mimicked. “Jesus you sound like a nun teaching 8th grade health class. You wanna know if I raped them.” His mouth was pinched flat. “No I fucking didn’t. Real men never have to force a girl. It’s not that hard to show a girl a good time, and god knows it’s better when she’s getting off. It’s pretty pathetic when a guy can’t pull his weight in the sack. If she doesn’t want it, you get out of dodge.” 

Sam blinked and leaned back, startled. “It’s important to you that women consent to sex.” 

“Hell yeah. Anyone I’m with walks away smiling.” He broke off and shut his mouth sharply, frowning. “Except when I kill them, I guess.” He didn’t look happy about it. 

Pressing his pen against his lips, Sam stared at Dean Winchester. There was something that didn’t add up about all of this. For one thing, two of the three murders had happened in the middle of the day, which made the bar hookup story unlikely. Sam was having a hard time squaring the handsome, affronted man sitting across from him with the gruesome crime scene photos. But if there was one thing Sam had learned studying criminology it was that killers came in all flavors and they were full of contradictions. 

According to the reports, none of the women had been sexually assaulted, although all three had been tied down and tortured. There were certainly people who got off on that kind of thing. 

“Where did you learn about sex?” Sam asked. 

“I guess you’d say I’m self-taught. It was just me and my dad growing up and his sex talk was something like ‘wrap it up.’” 

“Tell me about your dad.”

Winchester cocked an eyebrow. “Seriously, dude?” 

A little embarrassed, Sam shrugged. It wasn’t as if there were noninvasive questions to ask a serial killer. “Nobody’s born with a knife in their hand. Everyone grows up somehow.” 

“I dunno if my health insurance covers talk therapy these days.” Winchester slouched down in the metal chair, eyes narrowed. 

“Well, the FBI dug up some things about your childhood. Born in Lawrence, house fire in 1983 that killed your mother. Younger brother taken by CPS a year later when your father was arrested briefly.” Sam had his head tipped down toward his notes, watching through his bangs as Winchester’s shoulders tightened. 

“Yeah yeah, you know everything about me,” he interrupted. His knuckles were white, hands clasped together. “Not that it isn’t enlightening to hear just how little the Feds figured out.” 

“Would you like to amend the record?” 

“It totally doesn’t turn me on when you talk like a lawyer,” Winchester drawled but it lacked the heat of his usual come-ons. Normally he managed to sound like he meant it. 

“If talking about it upsets you…” Sam began, and hid a smile when Winchester pursed his lips. 

“It doesn’t  _ upset _ me. You want the greatest hits of my childhood, fire away.” 

“Okay.” Sam kept his voice level, non-threatening, and started with a softball. “Do you have any good birthday stories?” 

“That’s easy. When I turned 18 and Dad gave me my Baby.”

“Your baby?” 

“My car, man.” Winchester shook his head like Sam was being thick. 

“The Impala,” Sam said. 

“That’s her.” 

“That seems like a good gift.” 

“Damn straight.”

“It’s not really your childhood though, if it was your 18th.” 

“You know what I hate? Sticklers. Okay how about this one. I got my first gun for my 9th birthday. 1911 Colt pistol. There, that what you want to hear? The deranged killer was influenced early into a violent way of life?”

“Were you?” Sam asked mildly. 

Winchester snorted. “I guess you could say that, but not the way you’re thinking.” 

“What’s it that I’m thinking?” 

“Hey, that shrink crap is your gig, don’t make me do your job for you.” 

“Okay. What’s a happy memory of yours?” 

“Carla Bennetii, Knoxville, right before I dropped out, so… 10th grade, must have been. College chick with a kink for jailbait. Damn, that’s a happy one, for sure.” Winchester grinned, lascivious and deliberate, clearly enjoying both the memory and messing with Sam. 

“You dropped out?” 

Winchester’s smile slid away sharply. “What, the FBI didn’t figure that one out? I was mostly enrolled under my own name. Wasn’t America’s most wanted back then. Just the cheer squad’s most wanted.” He winked. The way he slid from teasing to guarded and back was making Sam’s neck twinge with phantom whiplash. Or maybe that was just a migraine starting at the base of his skull. The lights in the interview room were a harsh, unforgiving blue. 

“Why’d you drop out?” 

“Better stuff to do, you know how it is. What am I saying, you’re still in school. Guess you’re gonna have to take my word for it, since you’re a geriatric geek.”

“Geriatric huh? You know, one of us is gonna be thirty in two years and It’s not me.”

“Screw you.” He kicked back in his chair, relaxed, not quite smiling but face softened. “You know I never thought I’d make it to thirty? Figured the odds were pretty stacked against me.” There was a short silence, Winchester’s expressive mouth quirked. “The only reason I’m gonna make it to 30 now is because California is pussy about the death penalty.”

An abrupt, violent shiver gripped Sam’s spine, and he sucked in a breath. Winchester still looked amused but the pit of Sam’s stomach was sick with ice. He looked down at his notepad, trying to regroup. “The original report from St. Louis declared you dead. You were officially deceased for six months until you turned up in Minneapolis. There was a body. There are photos.” The photos were classified and Sam had never been able to get his hands on them. He still wasn’t sure whether to be frustrated about that or grateful. 

Winchester spread his hands. “Clearly, they were wrong. I can’t take responsibility for the St. Louis PD’s incompetence.” 

There was a perfunctory rap at the door and a guard stuck his head inside. “Time’s up.” 

Sam’s heart was still rabbiting with adrenaline. “Okay. Thanks. For your time, Mr. Winchester. I’ll see you next week?” 

Winchester flashed one of those smiles at him. “Only if you call me Dean.”

  


Over the following couple of months, Sam met with Winchester once a week. Their conversations rambled from murder techniques, to classic cars, to film critique and back to murder.

Sometimes he was gregarious and relaxed, flirting and joking. Other times he was moody. Once Sam got a call from the prison that his appointment had been canceled because Dean was in solitary. When Sam saw him next, his knuckles were scabbed and bandaged. 

At some point Winchester had become Dean in his head, and Sam was trying hard not to think about the implications of that. Despite Dean’s insistence that “Mister Winchester” was for cops and judges, “Not you, college boy,” Sam had tried to keep thinking of him as Dean Winchester, thesis topic, not Dean Winchester, guy I talk to more than most of my friends. 

Dean was more well-read than he pretended to be, and once admitted to stealing audio cassette tapes from libraries to listen to in the car. He’d laughed at Sam’s indignation about that. “What, stealing from libraries offends you more than murder? 

“You would not believe how much of this country the only things on the radio are Christian rock and country,” he continued, slouched in his chair and looking unfairly photogenic in his orange jumpsuit under the harsh fluorescents. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against Johnny Cash but I can’t listen to stuff without electric guitar for six hundred miles. You’re lucky if you get a talk show just to break up the monotony. I will say, most small-station talk radio is trash, though. I mean, just excruciating. Public radio is better, when you can get it.” 

“Are you saying you listen to NPR?” Sam asked, hiding a smile. 

“Fuck you, man,” Dean sighed. “Believe it or not, it’s one of three channels that I can get consistently all the way across Wyoming.” 

Sam was also doing his best to track the inconsistencies in Dean’s stories. There were a lot of things that didn’t add up, but it was easy to miss them because Dean was a master at redirection, and always sounded like he was lying, especially when he wasn’t, as far as Sam could tell. He would joke and banter about murders that there was hard evidence for, but turn dead serious when he talked about his car. Sam was at a disadvantage anyway because he was constantly distracted by Dean’s eyes and his mouth, the freckles across his nose. 

Sometimes Dean let things slip that hadn’t been in the police reports, and Sam had taken to poking into those mentions in his spare time. It wasn’t technically part of his thesis process although it was certainly relevant. He was just… curious. 

Dean mentioned a place in Wisconsin, Lake Manitoc, and Sam got on the computer, and sent some emails pretending to be a reporter. Dean wasn’t exactly unmemorable. Sam ended up talking on the phone to a woman who insisted Winchester had saved her son from drowning. “I know what they say on the news about him, but… I can’t explain it but he’s not like that. He saved my boy. Me too.”

She wasn’t the only one. The more he dug, the more people he found who swore up and down that Dean was one of the good guys, but wouldn’t explain why. Sam wasn’t trained as an investigator but he’d always been good at getting people to talk to him and chasing down patterns. 

“I talked to a girl in upstate New York, outside of Kingston. Worked at an art auction. She said you helped her with some provenances?” 

“Oh, Sarah. Yeah I helped her with her provenances, all right.” Dean waggled his eyebrows. 

“She said you were very helpful. I asked her if she’d followed the news about you since and she didn’t seem bothered that you’re a serial killer. Asked if you were okay, told me to tell you that if you needed help paying for a lawyer or anything to give her a call.”

“Ah man, that’s sweet of her.” Dean shook his head. “Nothing like grateful chicks, lemme tell you.” 

“What was she so grateful for?” 

“You think these magic hands don’t leave an impression?” Dean wiggled his fingers at Sam, making his cuffs rattle. “We had a good time, got some work done at her place. No big.” 

“Some work done at her place,” Sam repeated. “What kind of work?”

“Safety improvements, you could say.” 

“Like installing new locks?”

“Something like that. Hey, I’m a serial killer, I know something about security.” 

“And Sarah’s so grateful for you helping with some handyman chores that she’s offering to pay for your legal fees?” 

“Well.” Dean grinned. “Not  _ just  _ for that.”

Bringing up the anecdotes about Dean’s usefulness and heroism directly to Dean was a dead end. He would just make cheeky innuendos and act offended when Sam expressed doubt that what Dean had helped 70 year old Mrs Markle of Indiana with had been sexual. “All ladies are equal in my eyes, Sammy. And the occasional gentleman.” 

The more Sam dug, though, the more pieces lined up eerily with the confession Dean had made in Baltimore. The false confession, the made up, mad story about monsters and demons. Nobody wanted to talk about the details but Dean had described a human-eating monster that stalked the mountains in Colorado and Sam spoke with a girl and her brother who claimed Dean had happened to stumble upon them when they got lost in the woods and helped them to safety. Dean had talked about a hotel where a ghost tried to drown a little girl, and Sam eventually tracked down Rose, the former owner, who insisted that Dean had saved her daughter from drowning. 

The stories matched so closely, apart from the supernatural elements, that Sam was starting to wonder if Dean really was delusional. But he had none of the clinical signs - he exhibited no particular paranoia and never made exaggerated claims to Sam, except about his sexual prowess. And when Sam brought up the Baltimore confession, or other uncanny elements, Dean dismissed them every time. 

It didn’t help that Sam’s nightmares were coming more regularly, and seemed to have absorbed all of his daytime speculation about Dean’s life. In addition to his recurring nightmare about fire, he started dreaming about the monsters in Dean’s story. Creatures with teeth and claws, ghosts with bloody hands, running through a graveyard with something behind him that he couldn’t see, people with flat, glittering black eyes and smirking mouths. Sometimes in the dreams Dean was with him, and sometimes he couldn’t see Dean but he knew he was there, a comforting presence just out of sight. 

There were other dreams about Dean too, the kind that Sam woke from sweaty and hard in his boxers, rolling over to bite the pillow as he stroked himself, picturing Dean on the hood of a big black car as Sam came in his shorts. 

  


Sam woke up at 5:30 in the morning on a Monday to his phone ringing. He rolled out of bed, adrenaline thumping in his blood, to grab the receiver, his mind full of nightmare images, but it was just the records office for the Baltimore PD, saying his public records request had finally been processed and where could they mail the tape? Heaving out a breath, Sam gave them his address, and then went to put on coffee because his odds of going back to sleep were ludicrous.

When he got to the prison that afternoon, Dean’s face was mottled with purple bruising, dried blood on his split lip. “Something happen?” Sam asked, gesturing to his own cheek. 

“Spa day,” Dean said shortly. “What do you think happened?” 

Sam bit down on his own lip, looking at Dean’s swollen mouth. “I shoulda seen the other guy?” Sam cracked, weakly. Dean didn’t even muster a smile, just shrugged. 

Sam had arrived with a list of discussion questions like always, but the bruising on Dean’s jaw drove them all out of his head. He blurted without thinking, “Are you innocent?” 

“What?” Dean’s gaze, which had been moodily locked on the table, snapped toward him. 

“All those deaths. Did you do them, or was it… something else?” 

Dean’s eyes narrowed. “What else would have done them?” 

Sam’s heart was thundering in his ears. “I don’t know, a… a monster. A demon.” 

“That’s crazy talk,” Dean said flatly. 

“I know. God, I know, but Dean, I’ve been looking into it and something’s wrong, something doesn’t add up.”

“Drop it, Sam,” Dean growled. “Don’t go poking your nose where it doesn’t belong.” 

“But Dean. If you didn't do all those things then you shouldn't be in here.” 

“Oh, you think it would do me any good to say I didn’t do it? Huh? That a ghost did it instead? You think I want to be known as the crazy guy on death row?”

“No, of course, not, and it is crazy, but I’ve, I’ve been talking to people, hearing stories from people who say you saved them, and all those things you said about ghosts and monsters, I just wondered…” 

“You’re the psychology wunderkind, right? Listen to yourself. Whatever you think you’ve figured out or whatever supernatural story you’re spinning yourself, do yourself a favor and forget it.” 

“But… you’re hurt. You got in a fight. You’re on death’s row for god’s sake!” 

Dean snorted. “Think I forgot? Look. Every guy in here is just seeing what he can get away with. And I'm a fucking serial killer. I can take care of myself. I get left alone for the most part. How long do you think that would last if I started raving about vengeful spirits and demon possessions? I’d paint a target on my back.” 

“But if you’re innocent…” 

“No,” Dean said, so flat and sharp that Sam flinched. “Whatever I am, I’m not innocent.” In all their months of conversation, Sam had never heard Dean sound like that. 

“But…” 

“We’re done.” 

“Dean…” 

“I said  _ we’re done. _ Call the guard. I want to go back to my cell.” Dean’s knuckles were white on the edge of the table, hands spread so that the cuffs pressed viciously into his wrists. Freckles stood out on his pale cheeks, the bruising livid, but his incongruous, brutalized beauty just made him look dangerous. If he were a knife, you’d tip your own head back for him to slit your throat. For the first time, Sam saw the face of the killer he’d expected when he arrived to interview Dean Winchester. 

Trembling with adrenaline, Sam got up and went to the door. Dean watched him, hard-eyed, as Sam knocked and told the guard they were finished early. He wanted to say something as Dean was unchained and escorted from the room, but the only word on his tongue was Dean’s name and he swallowed it back. 

Sam went home. He knew he should email his thesis advisor, let her know what happened. Do an evaluation of the aborted session. Eat something, maybe. Instead he sat at his desk, leafing slowly through his notebook. He hadn’t taken many notes by hand, too swept up in Dean’s personality. For his summaries and analysis he’d been relying on the audio recordings. He stopped on a page toward the front of the notebook, where he’d written  _ Cherry Garcia.  _

Sam sat there as evening fell, the apartment going dark with evening around him, tapping his thumb on the words. 

  


The tape from Baltimore arrived three days later by express mail. Sam didn’t have a TV in his apartment so he borrowed Brady’s VHS player and hooked it up to his laptop. It took an agonizing forty five minutes to figure out the setup, but finally he hit play and a low-fi image of Dean filled the small screen. “You wanna know the truth? I’ll tell it to you.” 

Goosebumps prickled over Sam’s skin as he listened. He’d read the transcript of this confession, if you could call it that, but that was nothing to watching Dean’s eyes as he spoke. He was calm, focused, a slight smirk tugging at his mouth. Even on grainy tape Dean was magnetic and convincing. Sam had spent months now watching Dean obsessively, listening to him spin stories of all kinds, and there was an undercurrent of intensity to the confession that Dean’d had when talking about his father - a flippant veneer over something serious, as if he could disguise the honesty of his words with their shock value. Listening to Dean talk about ghosts and demons and monster hunting, Sam chewed his lip, more uncertain than he’d been since walking into San Quentin that very first day. 

The phone rang, and Sam nearly jumped out of his skin, heart pounding with adrenaline. He scooped it out of its cradle, the recording of Dean still speaking. “My mother was killed by one of them when I was a kid, burned up on the ceiling of my brother’s nursery.” 

Sam pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes, trying not to think of his nightmares about a burning bedroom. “Yeah?” 

“Have you seen the news?” It was Jess. 

“News?” 

“Turn on the radio. There was an explosion at San Quentin.” 

_ “What?” _

“Gas leak, they’re saying. It’s on local news and NPR.”

Sam felt his heart trip, stomach plummeting. “They like fire,” Dean continued conversationally on the tape. “I guess it reminds them of home.” Fumbling blindly for the pause button on the laptop screen, Sam reached for the radio with the other hand, phone slipping from his fingers and dangling by the cord. The radio was tuned to a classical music station and it took him long moments with his hands shaking to fumble the dial to the news. 

“...initial reports indicate no sign of foul play but a thorough investigation will take months and it is too soon to rule anything out. The entire facility is on emergency lockdown. Residents of the county are being advised to report any suspicious people directly to the authorities as any escapees should be considered potentially armed and dangerous.” 

Sam closed his eyes, feeling his heartbeat in the back of his throat. “Sam? Sam?” Jess was still on the phone, voice coming out tinnily from the dangling earpiece. Feeling dazed, Sam picked up the phone again. “I’m here.”

“I just… thought you should know. You weren’t there today, were you?”

“No. No, I wasn’t.” He pressed his fingertips to his forehead. “Not for a couple of days.”

“Are you okay? You sound really freaked out.”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course. Listen, I gotta go, thanks for the call.” He put the phone back in the cradle and stared at the laptop screen, with Dean’s face frozen on the tape. His mouth was open mid-sentence and his eyes were narrowed, challenging. Daring someone to believe him.

The news anchor on the radio droned on. “First responders on the scene confirmed that there have been fatalities, but there is not yet a final count on the dead and missing. We’ll be back with more coverage after the break.”

Hands trembling, Sam shut off the radio as the program flipped over to commercials. He had the phone number written down for one of the wardens who handled visitation, a woman who helped him set up the meetings with Dean in the first place. He tore his thesis file apart looking for it and finally found it on a sticky note by his desktop computer.

The call went straight to voicemail.

Grabbing the phone book, he flipped through to the S’s and dialed the prison’s main line, and got the usual automated message. Of course it made sense that they hadn’t had time to update their phone system recordings. They were probably swamped with calls from families of inmates. Not that Sam was family of course. Sam was… nobody. There was no reason to think he would get a call if Dean turned out to be among the dead. Sam pressed his fingertips to his aching temples.

Eventually he dragged himself to bed without brushing his teeth and lay awake for hours. When he finally dozed off, he was caught up in a nightmare of fire burning all around him and someone laughing unseen. He woke with a gasp, heart pounding and sheets damp with sweat. 

As he tried to relax back into bed, something tickled his senses. A soft sound outside his bedroom, a creak of the floor. The apartment building was cheap and ancient.

The creak came again, the distinct delay of a footstep. 

A new surge of adrenaline spiked in his blood. There was someone in the apartment with him. Rolling out of bed as silently as he could, Sam picked up the baseball bat beside the door and twisted the handle slowly and silently. 

The window in the living room was open onto the fire escape, the curtains billowing. Sam’s heartbeat thundered in his throat. A shadow moved by the kitchen door, man-shaped. His fingers tightened on the bat, palms sweating. 

Lunging across the room he swung the bat at the intruder’s head with all his strength. It connected with something that made a wooden splintering noise, and two sharp blows to Sam’s solar plexus and knees sent him crashing to the floor, with a body on top of him. Hands caught his flailing wrists, someone strong and solid using their weight to pin him down.

“Easy, tiger.” The voice was low and familiar. Sam jerked in his grasp. 

“Dean?” 

“In the flesh. You gonna go for the bat again if I let you up?” 

Sam gulped. “No?” Adrenaline was still making his heart race, blood thrumming in his fingers and toes. His dick was half-hard beneath Dean’s weight. 

The weight lifted off his hips and Sam sat up, rubbing his wrists, squinting at Dean in the dim illumination from the streetlamp outside the window. Dean was wearing jeans and a rough, workman’s jacket that made his strong frame look even more square than usual. Behind him there was a gaping hole in the plasterboard wall. “That was quite the swing you took,” Dean said, nodding at it. 

“I played softball,” Sam mumbled. “What are you doing here?” 

“I, uh.” Dean hitched a shoulder in a shrug. “God, I don’t know.”

“You here to kill me?” Sam asked, but the joke came out weak. 

“No. You gonna call the cops?” 

“No,” Sam said truthfully. 

They faced one another in the nighttime gloom. Sam was feeling shaky with the adrenaline let-down and with a thread of persistent fear. He was alone in the middle of the night with Dean Winchester, notorious serial killer and wanted fugitive, who had broken into his apartment and wrestled him effortlessly to the ground. Sam had a good four inches of height on Dean but he had no illusions about his ability to win a fight. 

Dean ducked his head, rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “I wanted to say goodbye. How fucking stupid is that? I could be across the state line by now but here I am.” 

“It’s not stupid.” Sam swallowed hard. “Or, well, maybe it is, but I’m glad. Dean, I was so worried, when I heard about the explosion.” 

“Yeah, yeah, nasty shit. What are they saying caused it?” 

“Gas leak.” 

Dean snorted. “Yeah, right. Good one.” 

Sam thought about his dreams of fire. “Was it… was it something else?” 

Eyes glittering in the low light, Dean stared hard at him, his expression unreadable. “Something. Yeah.” 

“All… is all the stuff true? That you said?”

“All the stuff I’ve said?” Dean smirked. “Have you met me?” 

“Dean. You know what I mean.” 

Dean deflated. “Sammy I told you, don’t go sticking your nose in that shit. It’s bad fucking business that’ll…. Heh. That’ll blow up in your face.” 

“But you’re… I’m probably never going to see you again. Can’t you tell me now?”

“No, Sam. I’ve gotten enough people hurt and killed dragging them into… my business. I’m not having you on my conscience too.”

Sam blinked. “You feel… responsible for me?” 

“Look.” Dean heaved a deep breath. “There is stuff in the world that most people don’t believe in, but it’s my job to deal with that, not yours. You don’t want to know what’s out there if you want to sleep at night. I keep people like you safe.”

“You  _ were  _ innocent. They locked you up -  _ fuck,  _ put you on  _ death row,  _ for trying to help people?” 

Dean chuckled. “Aw, it’s cute when you get all indignant over me, Sammy. And I’m not gonna lie, there were moments when I was real pissed about it. But I wasn’t worried. There are… people who want me alive. I’ve been told that I’ve got a ‘bigger part to play’.” He wiggled his fingers dramatically. “Once the de- uh, the bad guys find my other half or some shit. I try to ignore it when they start monologuing about my destiny and just read the exorcism faster.”

“Exorcism?” Sam gaped. 

“Forget I said that. What’s a guy gotta do to get a beer in this place, anyway?” 

“Exorcism?” Sam repeated, trailing him to the fridge as Dean helped himself to one of Sam’s microbrews. 

Popping the cap off against the edge of the counter, Dean took a long swig. Sam’s eyes caught on his throat working as he swallowed. “God,” he sighed. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve had a real drink? You don’t want to know about the shit that gets brewed inside.” 

“Exorcisms as in, demon possession?” Sam’s mind was racing, sorting through the details from Dean’s taped confession, the memories of Sunday school, Sam’s own dreams. 

“There’s something else I haven’t had in too long,” Dean said in a low, intent rumble, and Sam’s train of thought came to a screeching, calamitous halt. He’d thought he’d heard Dean use his come-hither voice to full effect before. He’d been wrong. 

Dean took one last gulp of beer, mouth closing around the neck of the bottle, and licked his lips after he swallowed. Sam followed the movement helplessly. Blood was flooding out of his brain and into his dick. 

“I still want to know… about… the rest of… it,” Sam protested weakly, trailing off as Dean crossed the dark kitchen and crowded into his space. The empty bottle clinked on the counter behind Sam. Dean’s arms were on either side of his hips. His eyes gleamed in the low light. 

“Whaddya say, college boy?” 

Sam gulped, his cock pulsing fully hard in his thin pajama pants. Their difference in height was even more pronounced this close, Dean’s head tilted back, but he had Sam boxed in against the counter and Sam felt off-balance and coltish the way he hadn’t since he was a teenager first growing into his size. His heart pounded. 

The silence had stretched too long. Dean’s eyes flickered. “Say the word and I’ll be out of your hair,” he said, pulling back slightly, enough to let Sam gulp in a breath. 

“No! No. Don’t go.” And before Dean’s lips could finish curving into a satisfied smirk, Sam smashed their mouths together. 

They stumbled into Sam’s bedroom, wrestling out of their clothes. Dean caught his jeans on one shoe and nearly took a header into the dresser, and Sam caught him, smothering his laughter in Dean’s shoulder. Dean swore at him and then nearly got one of Sam’s elbows in his face when he discovered how ticklish Sam was under his arms. “I've got you now, bitch,” Dean gloated, wrestling him down onto the bed. 

“Jerk,” Sam gasped through his convulsions of laughter, dazed by how easy and good this was. The weight of Dean on top of him, pinning him down, Dean’s grin hovering in the dark above him, his satisfied chuckling, all filled Sam with an elation he hadn’t felt since Jess. 

Sam was still panting and shivering with laughter when Dean bent and sucked his cock down without any warning. Shouting out in shock, Sam’s whole body jolted, curling up around Dean’s head and shoulders between his legs. His hands found the back of Dean’s skull and cradled it, prison-shorn hair velvety soft under his fingers. The practiced flutter of Dean’s tongue, the easy bob of his head and steady suction all filled in gaps of Sam’s mental picture of Dean’s sexual history. He groaned and petted Dean’s head, fighting not to thrust up. The head of his cock bumped the back of Dean’s throat and Dean flinched a little. “Sorry, sorry,” Sam whispered. 

Dean drew back, swallowing wetly. “S’okay,” he rumbled, and his voice, slightly hoarse, made Sam’s cock twitch and drool precome onto his belly. Cradling Sam’s balls in one hand, Dean ducked back down and swallowed around him again and Sam gasped, swearing under his breath. “Fuck, fuck, Dean.” 

They’d left the light off to avoid attention from outside. The diffuse orange light through the blinds from the streetlight painted Dean in streaks of gold. He had his eyes closed, lashes fluttering against his cheek. Cupping his cheek, Sam gasped, “Dean. Dean. Look at me.” 

He did, just a glint of light in the dark, green color turned black as deep water, but Sam could imagine it. He’d imagined it plenty, sitting across from Dean in the interrogation room. The reality was better. 

Sam came with a groan, his fingers clenching on the back of Dean’s neck. Dean made a noise that vibrated through Sam’s cock, seizing him with aftershocks. When he finally drew back, licking his lips, Sam tugged him up to kiss him again, licking the taste of his own come out of Dean’s mouth, fumbling with Dean’s fly, feeling the hard shape of his dick hot through the denim. 

Finally he got it out, silky flesh under his fingers, wet at the tip already, and he was dizzy with how hot that was. They were sprawled on the bed, Dean between Sam’s legs, half on top of him, Sam’s wrist at an awkward angle between their bodies, bumping his own oversensitive cock on every stroke, and it was high on the list of best sex Sam had ever had. He guided Dean’s cock down between his legs, lifting his balls out of the way with two fingers. 

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” he mumbled, and Dean let out a shaky breath, wet head of his cock brushing against Sam’s taint, teasing at his hole. There was no way they were fucking - they needed lube, and a condom, but Sam’s brain wasn’t fully online after his orgasm, he just wanted Dean  _ closer _ . He tugged at Dean’s shirt with one hand. “Hey, c’mere. Put it in my mouth.” 

Kicking his jeans off the rest of the way, Dean let Sam drag him up the bed, and hesitated with his knees next to the pillow but Sam arched his neck and opened his mouth meaningfully and Dean swore under his breath, swinging one leg over Sam’s shoulders and feeding his dick gently into Sam’s mouth, balls resting against his chin. 

Sam groaned his approval, and urged Dean forward with the hand on his ass. “Fuck, Sammy,” Dean mumbled, fucking his mouth shallowly. The heavy, intimate smell of his body was thick in Sam’s nose, the taste of precome gathering on his tongue, and Sam found his cock aching with the need to get hard again, too fast. 

_ I want to keep this, _ he thought with a burst of dizzying clarity, and wrapped inextricably into that thought was the second thought:  _ I can’t keep this.  _

  


Dean passed out on Sam’s shoulder after round three. He looked worn out and young, the lines around his eyes smoothed out but the bags beneath them pronounced. Sam struggled to stay awake, chest aching as the minutes on his digital alarm clock ticked by, closer to the moment he’d have to let Dean go. Sam’s arm was going numb beneath Dean’s shoulders, dried come was itching on his stomach, there was an empty condom packet trapped under Sam’s ass, and Dean was drooling on him. Sam wanted it to last forever. 

Sam wasn’t aware of falling asleep but dawn was creeping through the blinds. They had rolled in the night, so that Sam had his head on Dean’s chest. He woke slowly, listening to the thump of Dean’s heart through his ribs and the steady whoosh of his breathing. Heard him snuffle and smack his lips as he woke, shifting beneath Sam’s weight. 

“Time’s it?” he mumbled, not opening his eyes. 

“A little after six.” 

Dean heaved a sigh, fingers carding through Sam’s hair. “I should go.” 

Sam propped his chin on Dean’s sternum and bit his lip. What could he say? Don’t go? Take me with you? Authorities would be scouring California for San Quentin escapees. Someone might even make the connection with Winchester’s regular visits from a psych student and pay Sam a visit. Dean was right. He should go. 

Sam watched him dress, appreciating the way the denim hugged his ass, the undershirt that showed off his biceps and rode up on his belly. There was a bite mark just above his belt. Sam wondered where he’d gotten the clothes and if he’d stolen a car. 

Fully dressed, Dean turned to look at Sam, still naked in bed. 

“So,” Dean said. “I guess this is it.” The corners of his mouth pulled down. 

“I guess,” Sam echoed. “You’re really not going to tell me anything else? About… everything?” 

“Nope.” Dean popped the P sound. Sam considered arguing, but didn’t want to shatter the fragile stillness of the gray morning. There was a short silence. “Well. Bye, Sam. Take care of yourself.” 

“Yeah. You too, Dean. Be safe.” Sam’s throat felt tight, his eyes prickling. What the hell was wrong with him? Whatever it was, it was the same thing that had been wrong with him since he’d first set eyes on Dean Winchester. 

Dean flashed him a grin, an almost-perfect, hollow reproduction of his genuine smile. “Hey, don’t worry your pretty head about me, Sammy, I’ll be fine.” 

And then he was gone. The front door clicked. The apartment was empty. Sam tipped his forehead against his knees and shut his eyes tight. 

Eventually he dragged himself out of bed, put on sweats and yesterday’s tee-shirt, and poured himself a bowl of cereal. 

He had the carton of milk in his hand when there was a knock on the door. Sam’s heart leapt. Dean was back. He’d changed his mind. He was going to take Sam with him… to be a fugitive from the law? Get a grip for god’s sake, Sam scolded himself. There was nothing between him and Dean except what had already happened. 

He yanked the door open and swallowed a surge of disappointment when he saw Brady. “Oh. Hey. What are you doing here?” 

“Sam, my man!” Brady exclaimed in that obnoxious voice of his. Brady had never been outgoing when they first met, but some time about a year and a half ago he’d sort of come out of his shell, pretty abruptly all things considered. Sam would never say this to him, but extroversion didn’t really suit him. 

Sam let out a breath. “Brady. This isn’t really a great time…” 

Ignoring him, Brady shouldered past into the apartment. “You look tired Sam. Big night?” 

“Kinda. So, look you can come back later, I’ll give you a call…” 

“Do something you shouldn’t have?” Brady still had his back to Sam, standing in the middle of the apartment. “Or someone?” 

Sam’s gut clenched with apprehension. “Brady…” 

“Sam, Sam, Sam.” Brady turned, and his eyes were pure, glossy black, exactly like Sam’s nightmares. “Sammy. Sam Winchester.” 

“What?” Sam croaked. 

“Oh boy, Sam, you’ve got so much to catch up on. Although I see you’ve already got a head start on getting to know your brother.”

Sam’s mouth worked soundlessly. His throat felt knotted with panic. “Brother?” He managed. 

“Your big brother, who carried you out of the burning house the night your mother died. Who didn’t talk for six months after CPS took you away.” The… thing with Brady’s face laughed. “You know, he’s always been tangled up about you. I’m not surprised it turned out like this.” 

“No,” Sam whispered.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about the incest, Sam. It’s the least of your problems at the moment.”

“Wha- What are you? What have you done to Brady?” 

“Don’t you recognize me? I’m the man of your dreams, Sam.” He licked his lips, an obscene expression on Brady’s nerdy face. “But it’s okay. You and I are going to have lots of time to get to know one another.” 

His baseball bat was on the ground by the kitchen. If he could just slide sideways enough to grab it… He took a shuffling step. 

Something hit him in the chest, sliding him back until he slammed into a wall. There was pressure on his windpipe, crushing. He tried to lash out instinctively but he was completely immobilized and there was nothing - nothing there at all, nothing touching him. Terror spiked through him. 

“Nice try, Sam. But I’m afraid we’re not playing by the rules you’re used to anymore. Too bad Dean didn’t tell you more before he took off. But then, he doesn’t have all the facts. Yet.” 

Sam’s lungs burned, his throat throbbing. He tried to thrash and couldn’t move at all, felt his fingers and lips begin to go numb, dark cobwebs spinning in the edge of his vision. Brady’s blank, black marble eyes bored into his. 

Then there was a bang like a firework and Brady’s body jerked. A purple light flared beneath his skin, blazed out of his eye sockets and mouth, and the invisible force choking Sam vanished. Sam sucked in a painful breath, sliding down the wall. The unnatural light faded and Brady’s body collapsed. 

Behind him Dean stood in the doorway, holding an antique looking gun. Slumped on the floor, wheezing for breath, Sam looked up. 

“Sam,” Dean said. 

“Dean,” Sam tried to say, but it came out as a silent shape, throat wrecked. 

“It’s okay, Sammy. Don’t worry.” Dean gulped, freckles standing out on his pale cheeks. He looked terrified, but the hand holding the gun at his side was steady. “It’s all gonna be okay. They found you, but so did I. I’m never gonna lose you again.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love! Reblog on Tumblr [here.](https://nevergettingoverwincest.tumblr.com/post/635183679470190592/lockup-blues-prison-au)


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